This Week in Washington is a weekly publication of the Water Environment Federation’s Government Affairs department. It provides updates on the latest legislative and regulatory developments that affect the water and wastewater communities.

Congress Overrides Bush Veto on Water Bill
On Nov. 8, Congress voted to override President Bush’s veto of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007, the first time Congress has overridden a veto from President Bush and the first Congressional override since 1998.  The override was expected when the measure passed earlier this fall.  The House first voted for the override on Tuesday by a margin of 361-54, followed by a Senate vote of 79-14.  The legislation provides the Army Corps of Engineers with authority for over 200 water resources development projects, including wastewater treatment projects, worth over $23 billion. The package includes authorizations for projects to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, restore the Everglades, and restoration projects along the Gulf Coast.  The last time Congress passed legislation authorizing new water development projects for the Army Corps of Engineers was in 2000. 

WEF Sends Letter in Support of the Clean Water Restoration Act
This week, the Water Environment Federation sent a letter to Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN) of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in support of H.R. 2421, The Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA).  The legislation is designed to confirm that the originally intended jurisdictional scope of the Clean Water Act is to protect all water bodies in the United States.  The legislation was introduced in response to recent Supreme Court cases - Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v. Army Corps of Engineers and Rapanos et ux., et at. v. United States - that began to narrow the scope of the federal government’s reach to protect wetlands that were not directly connected to navigable waterways.  Chairman Oberstar is the primary co-sponsor of the legislation, which currently has close to 200 Democratic and Republican co-sponsors in the House.  WEF sent the letter of support after assurances by the Chairman that the legislation would contain wastewater treatment exemptions that currently exist in federal regulations.  A hearing on the legislation is scheduled for December 6th.  Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI).  To view WEF’s letter of support, click here. 

House Subcommittee Holds Hearing on National Commission on Water Policy
On Nov. 8 a panel of experts testified before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment regarding legislation that would create a nine person presidential commission to study and develop recommendations for a national water strategy.  H.R. 135, the Twenty-First Century Water Commission Act of 2007, would review national and local water policies on water supply, flood control, and environmental impacts.  According to Subcommittee Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), the goal of the commission would be to, “provide expert, scientific guidance on future water supply and demand projections, climate change impacts to our nation’s flood risk and water demand, and associated climate change impacts,” and to, “ensure that the nation is adequately prepared to meet the water supply, water quality, and water resources demands of the next 50 years.”

The panelists included Congressman John Linder (R-GA); Benjamin Grumbles, EPA Assistant Administrator for Water; David Conrad, Senior Water Resources Specialist, National Wildlife Federation; and Aris Georgakakos, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology.  The panelists all agreed more research on the future of the nation’s water supply is necessary, but several expressed concerns about the commission’s impact on state sovereignty.  It has been thirty-five years since the last national commission on water policy.  Additional information and panelists remarks are available at http://transportation.house.gov/hearings/hearingdetail.aspx?NewsID=380.

House Subcommittee Approves Perchlorate Bill
On Nov. 9, the House Environment and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee passed legislation that would force EPA to propose a drinking water standard for perchlorate within 18 months of the bill's enactment and finalize it within 30 months.  Perchlorate has been discovered at nearly 400 sites across the U.S., including in 153 public drinking water systems.  EPA attributes the delay in establishing standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) to the need for additional information on the extent of human exposure and health risks related to perchlorate.  Some states have taken the initiative to set their own perchlorate standard.  Massachusetts established a 2 parts per billion drinking water standard in 2006, New Jersey has proposed a 5 ppb rule, and earlier this month, California began enforcing a legal limit of 6 ppb for perchlorate in public drinking water.   Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has introduced two bills in the Senate (S. 150 and S. 24) to regulate perchlorate.  The text of H.R. 1747, the Safe Drinking Water for Healthy Communities Act of 2007, is available at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1747.

Congress Extends Continuing Resolution to Fund the Federal Government
Congress extended a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through Dec. 14 at spending levels approved for fiscal year 2007.  The measure was attached to a spending bill for the Department of Defense that was sent to the President on Thursday.  The Defense spending measure is $471 billion and does not include most of the supplemental spending for Iraq and Afghanistan that the Administration has requested.  It is the first of 12 spending bills for fiscal year 2008 that are headed for the President’s desk.  The Democrats continue to sort out how to pass the remaining budget bills before they adjourn in December.  The President has threatened to veto any spending bill that exceeds his targets.  Currently, Congress is approximately $22 billion above those targets. 

Federal Appeals Court Upholds EPA Rule on Cryptosporidium
A federal appeals court on Nov. 6 upheld an EPA rule that requires drinking water utilities that use unfiltered water to either treat the water with disinfectants that are effective in controlling the parasite cryptosporidium or to filter the water (Portland v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 06-1068, 11/6/07).  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a petition for review by New York City and Portland, Oregon.  The cities argued that the steps required under EPA's Long-Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule, issued in January 2006, are unnecessary and would be prohibitively expensive. 

EPA to Conduct Daily Loads Webcast December 6th
On Dec. 6, EPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds will be conducting a free webcast to introduce it's recently released draft document, Options for Expressing Daily Loads in TMDLs.  The webcast is designed to provide information to TMDL practitioners regarding options for developing appropriate daily load expressions for TMDL allocation time frames that are greater than one day (e.g., annual, seasonal).  According to EPA, the webcast will review the process for developing daily load expressions, provide examples and highlight the implementation benefits of identifying daily loads, address impacts of the daily loads requirement to the NPDES community, and provide the opportunity to pose questions to EPA staff and program experts.  For registration information, contact EPA's Rosaura Vega at 202.566.1514 or vega.rosaura@epa.gov.

Quote of the Week:
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."
- Herman Melville

To receive This Week in Washington via e-mail, contact Martha Ravenhill at mravenhill@wef.org.